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Old Posted Jan 12, 2014, 9:44 AM
ProphetM ProphetM is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2012
Posts: 439
First off, hats off to Lorendoc, who identified the same spot while I was still busy formulating my own post about it!

Quote:
Originally Posted by HossC View Post
I think the apartment building above the word "Ladies" is the Hacienda Arms aka. Coronet Apartments/Piazza del Sol on Sunset Boulevard. That dates the photo to after 1927.

Although the Hacienda Arms building is not visible in the picture below, the view of the mountains is very similar to the one above. It was taken on Croft Avenue looking north toward Santa Monica Boulevard in 1927.


USC Digital Library

Here's part of a 1931 aerial looking northeast over Santa Monica Boulevard. The Hacienda Arms is near the top left, and the Bekins Storage building from the picture above is just right of center. Going by the angle of the mountains in the previous picture, my guess is that the shoe store and cleaners were a little east of the Bekins building on Santa Monica Boulevard.


USC Digital Library
Great sleuthing! You are correct. The photo was taken just one block east of the Bekins building. It looks north on Orlando to Santa Monica Blvd, and the buildings in the photo are still there. Here is the old photo that I have marked to demonstrate:


ebay/marked by me

The distinctive roofline in the circle is still there today on what I will call building 1. The buildings I have marked as 2 and 3 are also there, but are disguised - an exterior remodel has integrated buildings 2 and 3 as well as the leftmost segment of building 1. Here is today's street view, with the same roofline feature circled and buildings 2 and 3 marked again:


Google Street View

Although buildings 2 and 3 (and the left end of building 1) appear to have been replaced, an aerial view tells a different story. I flipped around the Google Maps view to look southbound, and the back side of the modern roofline is visible:


Google Maps

Here on the roof it becomes very clear that the block is still divided into 3 buildings just like the old photo. The stepped roofline of building 2 is still visible behind the remodel, as is the old roofline of building 3 which drops down at both sides.
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